[XML-SIG] Re: Mr. Nitpicker looks at saxlib

[Fredrik Lundh]

(darn. sent this to the wrong mailing list. wonder if I can
disable that auto-fill feature of outlook express...)

some comments on some of LMG's comments; more will
follow later...

>| 2. Usability: There's no "feed" method.

>    def feed(self,data):
>        "Feeds data to the parser."
>        raise saxlib.SAXException("Method not supported.",None)  

don't forget the close method; sgmllib/xmllib/sgmlop uses
this to process what's left in the input buffers.  and with the
accelerated versions of xmllib/sgmllib, you'll leak memory
if you don't explicitly call the close method.

>| 3. Performance: Is the AttributeList class really necessary?  Wouldn't
>|    it be enough to use a good ole dictionary?

>Using dictionaries would mean losing attribute type information. This
>is important to be able to identify the different attribute types. DOM
>will have to do this and many other kinds of system as well.

what exactly can be returned by the getType method?  a string
describing the type?  what values can it have?  how should it
be used?

>Also, the current Python version of AttributeList has the added
>>advantage that it can be used like this:
>>
>>print "<%s" % name
>>for attr in attrs:
>>    print " %s=%s" % (attr,attrs[attr])

for kv in attrs.items():
    print "%s=%s" % kv

>>Then there's JPython integration and all that. IMHO AttributeList
>>should stay.

Well, I'm still sceptical...

>>Those who want all-out maximum overdrive __raw__ speed above
>>all else should not use SAX (or even Python) anyway.

Hey, everyone should use Python!

>>| 6. Usability: htmllib (!) provides save_bgn and save_end methods
>>
>>Well, this could be implemented in the extended drivers and might have
>>some advantages, but I personally don't really want this feature. Any
>>other opinions?

Nope. I wont miss them, at least.

>>| 7. Should the API be tweaked to adhere to the Python style
>>|    guidelines?
>>
>>IMHO: no. It's too late now. I've got lots of code that uses this
>>style, you've got code that in it, the DOM has it, the tutorial uses
>>it, Paul Prescod has used it and probably many others.

OK.

>>| 9. Should sgmlop perhaps be renamed to xmlop?
>>
>>XML is SGML, so if you want to support both I think you should keep
>>the name.

Well, changing the name might help us cash in on all the XML hype...
But you're right, of course; I'll keep the current name.

Now back to VML.

Cheers /F
fredrik@pythonware.com
http://www.pythonware.com